Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part I
Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.
Sir: This morning I received despatches from the department, numbered from 473 to 482.
With respect to the instructions contained in Nos. 475 and 476, I shall, for the reasons already given in my former despatches, No. 327 and No. 334, delay acting upon them until the President shall have an opportunity to act on a full survey of all the addresses that are on their way. My own suggestion would rather be that I should have instructions to publish one brief and general reply, the form of which may be furnished to me at the same time. * * * *
I now transmit addresses or resolutions of the same tenor as those heretofore sent, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the 10th ultimo; from the Liverpool meeting on the 19th ultimo; from Huddersfield on the 24th ultimo; from Ashford, in Kent, and from Ashton-under-Lyne, on the 26th ultimo; from the Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester on the 3d instant; from Massley, near Ashton-under-Lyne, on the 4th; and from Leeds on the 24th of February.
From these examples you will perceive that the current of sentiment continues to run strongly in the direction lately taken. * * * *
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[Enclosures.]
1. Address from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, February 10, 1863.
2. Address from Liverpool, February 19, 1863.
3. Address from Huddersfield, February 24, 1863.
4. Address from Ashford, in Kent, February 26, 1863.
5. Address from Ashton-under-Lyne, February 26, 1863.
6. Address from Union and Emancipation Society, Manchester, March 3, 1863.
7. Address from Massley, March 4, 1863.
8. Address from Leeds, February 24, 1863.
[Page 155]Resolutions from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
First resolution.
“That the revolt of the southern States of America against the federal government having avowedly originated in the determination not only to maintain but to extend slavery, and having been followed by the organization of a confederacy based upon the denial of human rights to the negro race, this meeting indignantly repels the assumption that the English people sympathize with a rebellion that thus violates every principle of political justice, or with institutions framed in defiance of the moral sense of civilized mankind, and which are an outrage upon the religion whose sanction has been claimed in their support.”
Second resolution.
“That in the election of President Lincoln, and in the principal acts of his administration—the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, the recognition of the republics of Hayti and Liberia, the concession of the right of search for the suppression of the slave trade, the scheme of compensated emancipation, and the proclamation which inaugurated the new year—this meeting recognizes successive triumphs of anti-slavery sentiment in the United States; rejoices in the prospect thus afforded of friendship between England and America, as well as of liberation to the enslaved; offers to the government and to the people of the loyal States the assurance of fraternal sympathy in their noble struggle; and requests that these resolutions be communicated to his excellency the American minister.”
An addresss from inhabitants of Liverpool, England, in public meeting assembled, to the Hon. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America.
Sir: Two hundred and forty years ago a Dutch man-of-war entered the James river, in Virginia, and landed twenty negro slaves, the first ever imported into the continent of the New World.
In the year 1860, by continued importations and by natural increase, that number had advanced to four millions.
These two facts describe an evil, which has been ever since pressing with accumulative weight upon the honor and prosperity of your country.
It is with mingled pain and pleasure that we remember the existence of negro slavery in our own West India colonies—with pain, that England should ever have soiled her fame with that accursed institution; with pleasure, that her free spirit at length broke all the bonds of vested interest, and bade the oppressed go free.
But our slavery was only colonial. It did not pollute the life-blood of the people at large by actual contact. At home it was regarded as much in the light of an error of our statute book as the crime of our nation. It occupied but a small portion of England’s vast possessions, and did not affect the organization of labor anywhere else. The interests of a class were identified with its maintenance, but not those of a whole mercantile community. Even thus limited, Englishmen still blush to think it was ever within the realm.
But the slavery of the United States is and has been a far greater calamity, [Page 156] both at home and abroad. The area of its occupation is immeasurably wider, the number of its victims far greater, while it has become so thoroughly identified with national life in the south as to be always styled the domestic institution. And if, on these accounts, the difficulty of its abolition be greater, so also is the danger of its maintenance.
The framers of a Constitution which was expressly designed “to secure the blessings of liberty” in an evil hour recognized, from motives of expediency, an institution which they too readily believed would speedily die out. Could they have foreseen the time when, so far from perishing, it would have been endued with more vigorous life, when their descendants would not only seek out new territory for its extension, but would even carry it back in ignominious triumph to lands whence, by a feebler government, but with more enlightened policy, it had been expelled, how would their noble hearts have been dismayed at such sad degeneracy!
But so it has been. The peculiar adaptability of southern soil for the growth of cotton, combined with mechanical ingenuity in simplifying the process of its manufacture, has not only given a larger value to the labor of the negro, but has created an inter-State slave trade from which the fathers of the revolution would have turned away in disgust.
The presidential chair and all the higher offices of state have, during a long succession of years, been occupied, with but few exceptions, by slave owners. The influence of the government has been given to the extension and protection of slavery. And though it is true that each State in the Union has been responsible for the maintenance of slavery within its own limits, the nation has identified itself with the institution by permitting it within the District of Columbia and the western territory, both alike common to all.
Worse than all, several of the slave States have broken out into open rebellion for the avowed purpose of founding an empire, to be indefinitely extended, and based upon the perpetual organization of slavery as the natural condition of the negro race.
To the national participation in the guilt of slavery one party in your country have always been opposed. With a holy and devoted enthusiasm they have tended the lamp of freedom, in full faith that sooner or later it would scare away the darkness. Every fresh exaction of the slave power has only served to deepen their earnestness, augment their numbers, and increase their influence. And the nation has at length awakened to a sense of its responsibilities. Your own election to the chief magistracy was an evidence of its determination that involuntary servitude should, at all events, never exceed the limits it had then attained. And here we call to mind your own words: “I have always hated slavery.” “I believe the government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” No longer harassed by those sectional proclivities in the cabinet which formerly prevailed, and pursuing a strictly constitutional line, Congress has abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and throughout the Territories of the United States; it has recognized as sovereign states the republics of Hayti and Liberia; and it has conceded to England the long-withheld right of search, thus rendering a treaty for the suppression of the slave trade something better than an empty form.
Constitutionally armed with powers derived from Congress, you, sir, as President of the United States and commander-in-chief of the national forces, have forbidden the return of fugitive slaves seeking refuge within the lines of the federal army. In September last you issued a proclamation declaring that you would consecrate the new year to liberty by decreeing freedom to every slave within the limits of the rebellion; but at the same time tendering pecuniary aid for the immediate or gradual emancipation of the slaves of loyal States. Both these promises you have faithfully kept, and two slave States have since accepted your proposal. That the edict of freedom has not been universal in [Page 157] its operation is owing, we know, to the limit placed upon your power by that Constitution which you have sworn “faithfully to preserve, protect, and defend,” and under which treason alone can justify you in compulsory emancipation. But we feel assured that by the inexorable logic of events the abolition of slavery will speedily take place in every one of the excepted districts.
We offer no opinion on the policy of the civil war now raging in your country; but for the measures we have thus briefly sketched, which have denationalized slavery, and which are intended to destroy it, as the avowed cause of the war itself, we now tender to you and your cabinet our respectful sympathy. For those acts of humanity and justice we trust you will realize your own reverential desire and receive “the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”
Signed in behalf of the meeting.
[Untitled]
At a public meeting of the inhabitants of Huddersfield, held in the Philosophical Hall on the 24th day of February, 1863, Isaac Robson in the chair, it was—
Moved by the Rev. Robert Bruce, and seconded by John Priestley, “ That this meeting desires to express its utter abhorrence of slavery wherever existing, and its emphatic condemnation of all attempts to extend or perpetuate so great a crime against humanity.”
Carried unanimously.
It was also moved by Joseph Bothroyd, seconded by the Rev. Thomas Stephenson, and supported by George Thompson, “That while this meeting deeply deplores the present unhappy conflict in America, the cause of so much misery both there and elsewhere, it nevertheless observes with satisfaction the growth of anti-slavery sentiments in the United States, and declares its approval of the recent acts of the federal government so far as they have tended to confer the boon of liberty on more than three millions of our fellow-men who have been so long unjustly held in bondage.
“And, further, that this meeting earnestly desires that the means proposed to the States remaining in the Union for compensatory abolition of slavery may be speedily adopted, and thus that the stain may be completely and forever removed which has so long disgraced a great and enlightened republic.”
Carried with five dissentients.
It was also moved by the Rev. R. Stainton, seconded by Thomas Denham, “That E. A. Seatham, esq., M. P., be requested to present a copy of the previous resolutions to the American minister in London, with a request to forward the same to President Lincoln.”
Carried unanimously.
Copy of resolution of the Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester.
That the executive of the Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester has heard with feelings of humiliation that certain Englishmen, including some members of the British House of Commons, are concerned in the illegal enterprise of [Page 158] building and fitting out piratical ships in aid of the American slaveholders’ confederacy, contrary to public policy, national honor, and the Queen’s proclamation of neutrality.
The executive hereby records its protest against all such disreputable practices, and calls upon Parliament and her Majesty’s government to institute the needful steps forthwith to bring these delinquents before a tribunal of public justice, and to put an effectual stop to all such proceedings.
Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester.
(In co-operation with the London Emancipation Society.)
ADDRESS.
The Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester has been formed (in cooperation with the London Emancipation Society) to give expression, on behalf of the population of this district, to their earnest sympathy with the cause of freedom and fraternal regard towards their kinsmen of the United States, and to resist all recognition of the slaveholders’ confederacy.
We emphatically repudiate those unworthy expressions of satisfaction at the contemplated disruption of the American Union which have disgraced the columns of some of our journals, and the utterances of too many of our public men and members of Parliament.
We deplore the systematic perversion of facts in regard to the vital questions involved in the American struggle and the habitual suppression, by leading organs of the press, of reports of meetings at which views hostile to the slave power have been expressed. We feel that the credit of English journalism and the honor of our country are compromised by these unworthy attempts to foster jealousy of a growing kindred power, to create a desire to see that power humbled, and the progress of popular government thereby impeded. These perversions, suppressions, and misrepresentations have unfortunately created in the minds of the American people, north and south, an impression that the English nation is hostile to the federal cause, and would be exultant at the downfall of the great republic.
The breaking up of the American Union into two or more separate governments would be a world-wide disaster, and entail many grievous calamities. Such a disruption would substitute for a single and cheap government two or more of a very expensive character; would impose upon each the necessity of keeping up large standing armies, which would absorb, as in Europe, a third of the resources of the state, imposing heavy taxes on the people; would provoke, sooner or later, other wars as disastrous as the present; would encourage the secession of other States, and thus paralyze that magnificent development of human activity and constitutional liberty which has been the admiration of the civilized world, and would reopen the African slave trade with all its horrors and barbarities. We are, therefore, deeply convinced that the maintenance of the federal Union of America is an object of unspeakable importance to the whole human family, and that its disruption would prove a calamity to the cause of freedom and to the interests of civilization.
We know that the sentiments of the great bulk of the people of this district, and we believe of the country generally, are decidedly in favor of the federal government and of those principles of freedom and equality in defence of which it is making such noble and patriotic sacrifices. With every wish to uphold the principles of non-intervention and strict governmental neutrality, we are impelled to declare that this nation is, by its feelings, inclined, as by its antecedents bound, to give its whole moral support to the cause of order, of civil freedom, of constitutional [Page 159] government, and of emancipation—all of which are represented by the north in its struggle to maintain the Union.
The so-called “southern chivalry” is waging war against a free, popular government, with the intention, unblushingly proclaimed, of forming a new confederation, whose chief corner-stone shall be the execrable system of human bondage. The men who initiated this wicked rebellion did so by perjury, robbery, and fraud committed against the community by whom they were paid, and whose Constitution they had sworn to defend. The slaveholders, who are the mainspring of the conspiracy, form but a small section of the people over whom they exercise an absolute domination.* The success of the rebellion would, therefore, promote only the sordid interests of a few, whilst it would, in all probability, indefinitely prolong the bondage of the negroes and the degradation of the poor whites of the south.
The federal government, on the other hand, was elected on the policy of restricting slavery within existing State limits, and on the principle that the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom. It was against this that the slaveholders rebelled.
Since the commencement of hostilities, President Lincoln has made many practical advances towards a complete recognition of the declaration of independence that all men are created equal! He has procured the liberation of the slaves in the District of Columbia and the interdiction of slaves in the Territories; he has enforced the laws against the African slave trade, and for its more effectual suppression has concluded a treaty with England granting the right of search; he has decided to receive ambassadors from the negro republics of Hayti and Liberia, and followed the good example of Great Britain; he has proposed to purchase the liberty of all slaves in the loyal States, and his Attorney General has pronounced free negroes to be citizens of the Union, which previous governments had denied. To crown this series of just and humane efforts for freedom, President Lincoln, as commander-in-chief of the forces, has proclaimed unconditional freedom to all bondsmen of the United States.
The conduct of those public men amongst us whose policy has been to retard the progress of liberty at home (pretending to ignore the distinction between the aims of the constitutional government at Washington and the slaveocracy headed by Jefferson Davis) may be understood; but for liberal-minded men to countenance these rebels and enemies of mankind in their nefarious designs against public order, moral law, and social progress, is as opposed to the teachings of Wilberforce, Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and Henry Brougham, as slavery itself is to the genius of the Christian religion.
Apart, however, from the higher considerations upon which the actions of public men and the policy of nations should be based, we know that the workingmen of this district regard with astonishment a civilization which can look complacently upon 4,000,000 of human beings in a state of the most abject bondage. The operative classes are convinced that the labor markets of Europe are injuriously affected by the system of slavery; that the value of our commercial relations with four millions of people, enjoying the fruits of their own labor, will be vastly enhanced, whilst by the success of the federal cause that odious system of slave-breeding for the auction pens of Richmond, which calls for the indignant reprobation of mankind, will receive its death blow.
Deprecating war, and deploring its ruinous consequences, we most cordially and earnestly desire the speedy establishment of a safe and enduring peace on the basis of the complete emancipation of every chattel-slave in the American [Page 160] States, believing that nothing less will justify the policy of the north, or recall to reason the slaveholding oligarchy of the south.
We commend to the thoughtful consideration of our countrymen the momentous question involved in the great conflict now desolating the American continent. This is no matter of doubtful import or party issue. The lines are clearly drawn, and. every one must soon take his stand either with the enemies of mankind, the slaveocracy at Richmond, or with the friends of freedom, as represented by the federal government at Washington.
Signed on behalf of the Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester.
[Untitled]
To his excellency the honorable Charles Francis Adams, the United States minister in London:
Honored Sir: At a public meeting of the inhabitants of Mossley called to consider the best means of abolishing slavery and maintaining the American Union, held in the lecture hall of the Mechanics’ Institute, one of the largest rooms in the town, on the 26th ultimo—the hall being densely filled in every part, and large numbers being unable to gain admission, and the proceedings being of the most enthusiastic character—the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:
1. Moved by the Rev. E. Minton, seconded by Mr. N. Radcliffe, senior, and supported by Mr. J. A. Jackson :
“That the revolt of the southern States against the federal government having avowedly originated not only to maintain but to extend slavery; having been followed by the organization of a confederacy based on the denial of human rights to the negro race, this meeting indignantly repels the assumption that the English people sympathizes with a rebellion that thus violates every principle of political justice, or with institutions framed in defiance of the moral sense of civilized mankind, and which are an outrage upon the religion whose sanction has been claimed in their support.”
2. Moved by the Rev. N. Cocker, seconded by Mr. Heys, and supported by Mr. E. O. Greening”:
“That in the election of President Lincoln and in the principal acts of his administration—the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, the recognition of the republics of Hayti and Liberia, the concession of the right of search for the suppression of the slave trade, the scheme of compensated emancipation, and the proclamation which inaugurated the new year—this meeting recognizes the successive triumphs of anti-slavery principles in the United States, and rejoices in the prospect of a better feeling between England and America as well as liberation to the enslaved, and offers to the government and the people of the loyal States the assurance of fraternal sympathy in their noble struggle.”
3. Moved by Mr. J. Robinson, seconded by Mr. J. Rhodes, and supported by Mr. J. C. Edwards :
“That this meeting desires to express its grateful appreciation of the noble conduct of the people of the United States, who, whilst they themselves are [Page 161] suffering the evils resulting from the terrible ordeal through which their country is passing, have generously manifested their sympathy with our distress by sending the noble ships, the George Griswold and the Achilles, freighted with full cargoes of food for free distribution amongst our suffering population, for which this meeting begs to express its most heartfelt thanks, and it desires that copies of the resolutions passed at this meeting be sent to his excellency the American minister in London.”
Memorial of the Leeds Workingmen’s Institute to the people of America.
The members of the Leeds Workingmen’s Institute have heard with a pleasure which they cannot readily describe of the contribution lately made by the people of America towards the relief of their distressed fellow-laborers in Lancashire.
This act of sympathy, so spontaneous and so generous, has excited throughout the country the warmest feelings of gratitude.
The thanks of the nation at large will be conveyed to the people of America through other and more appropriate channels; but the workingmen of Leeds can at least bear witness to the feeling which has been aroused. in a large section of their countrymen by this instance of good will on the part of the American people. In justice, no less to their order than to themselves, they venture to give expressions to that feeling in the present address.
And, in the first place, they beg to offer their most hearty thanks to those who have so gracefully ministered to the wants of a nation connected, indeed, with themselves by blood, by language, and by laws, but of late too much estranged from them by political differences.
They cannot but remember that this assistance is rendered at a time which makes it particularly valuable as a token of sympathy, when other claims, which might well have been considered paramount, are pressing upon the American people.
They would gladly see in this mark of kindness an assurance that, however the governments of the two countries have differed, and may still differ, on questions of international or domestic policy, the hearts of their inhabitants are not yet severed; that the people of America and the people of England feel themselves bound together by stronger ties than political alliances can furnish, or than political differences can break. They earnestly hope that such distress as has been lately felt by the working people of Lancashire may never be experienced by any of those whom they address; but should the time ever unhappily arrive in which such help as has now been afforded might be acceptably returned, by none would such assistance be more eagerly offered than by the workingmen of England.
On behalf of the Leeds Workingmen’s Institute.
Ashton resolutions.
Mr. William Kellsal moved the first resolution, which reads thus:
That this meeting denounces and abhors the attempt now made by the slaveholders of the southern States of America to establish a constitution the chief corner-stone of which is professedly based on slavery.
[Page 162]Mr. James Broadbent moved the second resolution, which was as follows :
That this meeting admires and approves of the emancipation policy which President Lincoln and his colleagues have adopted as the best means of destroying slavery, and delivering their country from the contempt and reproach of the world; and such policy is entitled to our warmest sympathy and support.
Mr. William Stephenson proposed the third resolution:
That our hearty thanks be given to the people of the free States of North America who have so generously assisted the operatives of Lancashire in their distress; and we hail with pleasure the arrival of the George Griswold and other ships as a tangible expression of good feeling, and the strongest refutation of the common charges of hatred and malice attributed to the Americans towards this country.
- By a recent act the conscription in the south includes all men between 16 and 60 years of age; exemption being granted to the owner of six slaves, and so in proportion for every six slaves a male relation or friend is exempted. General Neal Dow says the people in the south avow that “this is a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.”↩